


The Smarty and the Speedster.

by Neondragon54



Category: Ruby Redfort Series - Lauren Child
Genre: AHJJHDFSJHDFKSJ, Highly blase with canon, Not beta we die like Buzz, Other, Powered!AU, RR BB, Who knows how this is going, we manipulate that shit for plot, what is canon
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-29
Updated: 2021-01-16
Packaged: 2021-03-11 00:13:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 6,883
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28386069
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Neondragon54/pseuds/Neondragon54
Summary: Hitch did not like what was being asked of him. Sure, Ruby was easily the smartest person at Spectrum because that was literally his superpower and she had always said she was willing to help. And she had been specifically requested by the coding staff, something to do with her being good at recognising patterns and her being real smart. LB had said something along the lines of ‘it’s not often that the coding department asks for help so it must be important as well as the current Merger. Let them have this one and we will try and make sure that Ruby does not jump feet first into this one.
Comments: 12
Kudos: 6
Collections: Ruby Redfort Big Bang





	1. Chapter 1

Hitch did not like what was being asked of him. Sure, Ruby was easily the smartest person at Spectrum because that was literally his superpower and she had always said she was willing to help. And she had been  _ specifically  _ requested by the coding staff, something to do with her being good at recognising patterns and her being real smart. LB had said something along the lines of ‘it’s not often that the coding department asks for help so it must be important as well as the current Merger. Let them have this one and we will try and make sure that Ruby does not jump feet first into this one.

So, Hitch was driving to the Redfort Estate from the other side of the city, thanking the lord that rush hour meant that traffic was headed into the city and he was leaving it. Sitting on the passenger seat of the car was a full lever arch file and equally filled manilla file. As well as an extremely well brewed coffee and a frankly excellent pastry. He flicked through it as he stopped at a red light, the one by the roundabout so he would be stuck for the next five minutes. It was just sheets and sheets and sheets of numbers seemingly grouped into fives, who know what they meant though.

He arrived at the house as the clock struck eight, almost dropping his coffee as the bongs from the grandfather clock started. He didn’t need the coffee his power was the fact he didn’t need sleep; a thing that had almost killed his mother when he discovered that as a two year old apparently, he hadn't bothered getting back in touch. The lack of sleep meant that he was now enabled to unnerve everyone with boundless energy, so he had decided a long time ago that he would drink coffee to stop people being freaked out, now he had a massive caffeine addiction and an extremely complicated coffee setup.

It was nine before he even considered attempting Ruby up, first with a polite knock on her door. This was responded to by a muffled curse and what sounded like, ‘five more minutes’ so Hitch felt the necessary course of action was to use the Tannoy system.

The Tannoy system was what Brant had put in place after visiting some unknown hotel in the Mediterranean, and Hitch perceived them as being severely underutilised. That only worked to his favour though as even though Ruby had a super memory... she always forgot about them. “Just because you don’t have to sleep,” She threatened as she left the hallway into the stairwell "Doesn’t mean that I don’t as well.”

“I have a gift for you short stack” he smiled, placing a banana milkshake in front of Ruby who had seated herself at the breakfast bar, “Guess what it is,”

“I hate it when you do so early in the morning, not even my superpower trying to make me a Sherlock Holmes.” Ruby mumbled before shifting into a slightly better posture, seemingly more coherent and put together now she had a goal to achieve. She observed him for a few minutes, hawk like eyes gaining as much information as possible. “Your suit suggests you’ve already been outside for the day, the wrinkles on your pants and blazer shows that you’ve been in a car but an hour ago. Powdered sugar on your tie suggests donuts,” She paused and raised an eyebrow, “But the Double Donut Diner isn’t open today cause it’s Marla’s husband’s birthday.” She stopped and glanced around again before smiling and looking back at Hitch, “Coffee cup on the counter but no paper bag, you’ve met Froghorn,”

“Froghorn, silent G,” He corrected automatically, only to see Ruby glaring at him.

“You’ve got a job though,” More hopeful and awake than she had been, “You’ve been to coding.”

Hitch nodded and smiled before placing the offending arch lever file and manilla envelope onto the table with a loud thud before fishing a crisp white envelope out of his pocket and placed it carefully on the stack of paper. Ruby picked it up and inspected it, before grabbing a nearby butter knife and slicing it open, “Miss Redfort, This is the code used to message a huge global trade, here is the code we have a few pieces that are missing, the letters GWR. Do not and I repeat DO NOT, oh all caps LB must be serious, do not engage with this group of people if you crack the code, you must inform a Spectrum agent as quickly as possible they will take it from there.” She read out. 

“Not sure why she put that note there,” Hitch sarcastically added, to which Ruby responded with another glare, “If looks could kill,” He answered, “Mrs Digby taught you that I bet.”

“You betcha,”

“Seriously though, don’t go in solo, or with Clancy,” He quickly added, “You’ve almost died five times now and we won't be able to explain that to your parents.”

Ruby shifted back to the grouchy just awake teen, “I’m meeting up with Clancy later anyway,” She muttered sipping her milkshake again, flicking through the sheets of paper, then back at the note. “So this won’t be done today.”

“Didn’t expect it to,” He started, “Coding has had it for a few weeks now, but there’s a whole shift and merge with another department so there is a lot of work being done to make sure that is going well.” 

Ruby wrinkled her nose and frowned, “I will attempt.” She declared moving off her seat and grabbing the file to take it upstairs. Hitch smiled and watched her go grabbing a list of chores from the fridge he went to start his day.


	2. Chapter 2

Ruby was buzzing in a way that Clancy had not seen in a while as she was flicking through a notebook scrawling in it. Normally Clancy was the one that had to be extremely obvious emotions, just because he was a projection empath, unique but not unheard of. Ruby had always described it as a colour, and Clancy was describing Ruby as a sunny buttercup yellow. He could totally match that energy.

She smiled when she felt it.

The room quickly filled with the yellow excitement. Ramping each other up, Clancy pushing it as far as he could before Ruby would laugh and tell him to stop. It had happened enough times that they could do this for a few more minutes before the happiness would spill into the neighbouring rooms. Then the door quickly opened and it suddenly dissipated into the corridor.

“You two having a fun time?” Del grumbledlooking between the two who had been waiting for everyone to get their gear on, waiting to go out and play basketball. “Can you calm it down to a solid purple, I can feel you in the other room,” The room calmed down, still the happy yellow but not the blinding neon it had been. “You have Elliot on your team anyway,”

“That is BS,” Ruby complained, moving to stand up and to face the other girl, “Why am I never on your team?” Ruby was almost always placed on Clancy and Elliot’s team, and she had never once played on the same team as Del.

“Because you’re shit.” Del smirked, “You bring down Clancy and Elliot and Red brings down us.”

“You have perfect aim, Red can perfectly thread a needle and there is totally a crossover in playing basketball and that one,” Ruby complained, “Whereas, I am far too small to play this decently, Elliot has little crossover between playing basketball and playing instruments and Clancy,” The room turned purple, well a slight undertone started below the purple, “Clancy deserves to be on a winning team for once,”

“Counter point Redfort,” Del started, “You were late, and teams had been picked earlier, if you had been here earlier…” she trailed off, waiting for Ruby to fill in her own gaps. 

“I can’t control the traffic,” Ruby interrupted quickly, “We somehow managed to hit every single one of the red lights on the way over to your house.”

“The empty cup of coffee and paper bag covered in powdered sugar says otherwise but it doesn’t matter,” Del interrupted her, Ruby moved to grab the ball from Del, tossing it slightly as she moved out the door, Clancy moved to follow and Del brought up the rear smiling widely.

The walk to the park was relatively easy, it wasn’t quick by any means as they stopped at the hole in the wall bakery close to a bank and then a pop up coffee shop. They moved between the bustling streets of the more touristy parts of Twinford, the group was coalesced with the happy yellow streaked with purple. Clancy leading the pack with Elliot as they all goofed off together, nothing serious was happening about this.

The basketball courts at the local parks were their turf. Cracked paving slabs and broken concrete courts, sun bleached paint marked out the courts and ratty nets hung off the metal hoops. They split into two teams, Ruby throwing the ball with relative ease and aim to the centre before Del called a team meeting.

“This isn’t the NBA,” Ruby yelled from her side of the court, Elliot chuckling as Del looked over her shoulder, eyes narrowing. “Stop overachieving.”

“The school’s tournament is in two weeks time, sorry for caring about trying to win this.”

Ruby looked at the two boys, raising an eyebrow that translated to, “We’re doing this for fun right?” The court pulsed a violent fuschia of agreement and Elliot nodded curtly, “For fun.” She spoke out loud. Sticking her hand out in between the two boys.

“For Fun!” The two-boy repeated before throwing their hand in the air.

“For Victory,” The three girls opposite them mirrored.

The game lasted three hours and in a surprising event that was surprising nobody Del’s team won. What was surprising was that Ruby’s team had managed to score three points, admittedly when Red and Del had wandered off to the public bathrooms and left Mouse to defend against the three others by herself, but it was three more points then they where expecting which was a huge plus. 

Clancy went back to Ruby's house that evening, walking through the town to the estate. Ruby drummed on her legs as they walked through the streets, sheltering as a light shower started falling from the sky. “You’re excited about something.”

“That easy huh,” Ruby smiled before spinning round to face Clancy, “Must be losing my touch.”

“I can read you like a book, it’s a Spectrum thing,” Clancy smiled, pushing his glasses further up his nose, “You do a sort of,” He patted a rhythm on his legs. “Normally it’s a,” He patted a slightly different rhythm, slightly less triplets, a few more quavers, more of a march then a jig. “Noticeable, not predictable.” He added.

“You know me too well if that’s a tell.” Ruby smiled, poking him slightly. “You know me too well.” He laughed and the room turned brighter, both leaning back against the wall, slowly breathing in the sunshine yellow. 


	3. Chapter 3

Ruby was missing a few key items about the code, but the way it had been organised and filed made it seem like it had honestly been an afterthought, so she was not mad about it. Nevertheless, she had little background on the code, where it had been found and who had found it was always useful in trying to get a character of the person at least dropping the code off. That could suggest what sort of people they were running with. And all she had was code, not helpful.

“Hitch,” Ruby started, “Who headed this code before it was passed to me?” The only clue she could find was where the letters GWR on a post it note from an apparent drop off point. That could only be The Great Western Railway. Ruby had no other idea what it could be. However, the numbers had little correlation with engine or carriage numbers and even if they did she would have no idea how it could be retranslated into actual useful code.

“Pretty sure Blacker was decoding it, but Robby was the lead.” Hitch looked at the thirteen-year-old as she flicked through the loose-leaf papers, glancing at her yellow notebook every couple of seconds, pencil in hand.

“Who’s that? He's alright.” She asked, barely looking up at him.

“She,” He emphasised it and she felt bad, woops. “Is alright.” Hitch started before pausing to think. “Bit mad, bit chaotic but she is LB’s best friend and damn good at her job.”

“What does she do?” Ruby asked, standing up to grab some cereal and the whole milk from the fridge. Spectrum was filled with mad people; it sort of came with the job, overpowered and mad people.

Hitch smiled, closing the door behind the girl as she pulled a bowl out of the cupboard. “Human Resources.”

“Must be mad to do that at Spectrum,” Ruby mumbled to herself, but Hitch nodded with agreement.

He sipped his coffee and placed the turquoise mug back into the sink. “I’ll take you there after you finish up alright.”

“YES!”

Hitch drive Ruby through the crowded streets of Twinford. Weaving his way through the congested roads and regretting everything as he tried to get to the Spectrum entrance in the middle of morning rush hour. Normally it would be fine, he would be leaving the city at this time but now he had been stuck in a jam on a steep hill hoping that his gears would hold. A full hour later and he was pulling up to a small community theatre and a local coffee roastery.

Hitch rocked on his heels as Ruby stood next to him on the pavement. Hands jammed into his pockets as he pointed at the wall in front of him, “You already know what I’m going to ask you to do. No fly or hints on this one as well.”

“Like I need it,” Ruby scoffed, it was really obvious to her, “Second to the right,” She waved a pointed finger at it. “Stylised to look like its part of the stage door from the theatre with the green paint brass handle; but it was on the slightly newer wall of the coffee roastery. See how the brick changes colour to a slightly paler orange and how the mortar changes to a darker brown.” She smiled and looked up at him. “Is that right?”

“That’s your final answer?” Hitch asked, face revealing not emotion either way.

He didn’t look at her as she replied, voice firm and confident. “Final answer.” Hitch smiled, ruffling the top of Ruby’s hair to muss it up, before pulling a key from his pocket and opening it.

They walked down the ramp, Ruby thanking everything that it wasn’t a staircase as it had been before. It exited onto a white corridor, two white doors and then LB’s office at the end. Hitch knocked on the right most one, the one just before the colour started fading to the soft yellow of Mission Control.

“Oh, hi Hitch.” A woman started, moving to stand up from behind her desk. “And the infamous Ruby Redfort, it was only a matter of time. You’re here about the code.” It was a statement, and her face would suggest so, put her tone inflected to suggest a question.

“Yes I am.” Ruby smiled. The lady seemed nice enough, black blouse with white piping along the collar, a pair of trousers and sturdy leather boots. Wild curly hair dyed red but had washed out back to the brown, was pinned back from her face in two twists. “Where have you been getting the notes?”

The lady pulled a thick looking notebook out of the drawers and flicked through it, “Anderson found one at the football stadium and Charles found a few at the swimming pool. A few others around time, they are always around sport centres. All in the same typeface and all three days before a major spike in overdoses.

We cannot find anything about the person dropping it. Which, you know, Isn’t that great.” She frowned and looked at the teen, “I mean I’ve actually waited to see if my powers affect the person so we could at least have some idea but,” She gently knocked her fist on the table edge. “Doesn’t work like that.”

“What are your powers,” Ruby asked, notebook pulled out and pencil in her hands and she stopped scrawling notes. “If you wouldn’t mind telling.”

“Time manipulation.” Ruby raised an eyebrow, not what she expected from the head of HR at a secret spy agency, but life is filled with surprises. “So, he’s got something that can override that. Hitch, you know where coffee is here, stop fucking about with the cookie barrel. The only clue is GWR, as I’m sure you’ve worked out. Which isn’t that helpful but that’s it really. Don’t have any more notes from coding but I’m sure if you go down there they’ll help you. They’re a bit overwhelmed because Spectrum 9 got dissolved into Spectrum 12 and half their coding came down here and we didn’t get any of their coders,” Ruby looked at Hitch who was making sharp cutting motions at his neck. “But you really don’t need to hear about company politics. Blacker will be happy to help you.”

“I hate it when corporate mucks about with the offices.” Hitch started but Robert interrupted.

“You hate it, I’m the one that has to implement it,” She frowned, “But you know where to find me if you need any more help.” And with that Hitch dragged Ruby out of the room and started moving down to coding.

Ruby loved coding for three reasons.

1) Blacker who was generally amazing and always had snacks.

2) Froghorn and his ability to turn the worst instant coffee into something nice to drink, a talent that went vastly underappreciated.

3) And lastly, she liked the silent concentration and the bean bags, primarily the bean bags but also the silent concentration.

“Hey Rubes.” Blacker smiled as she burst into the room, “I'm going to assume you are here about the GWR code.” He didn’t look up from his monitor and the small mound of papers on his desk. “Going alright?”

“I suppose so,” Ruby answered, pulling the file from her rucksack and dropping it on her desk with a loud bang, “Got any ideas.”

“None whatsoever, Miles had been working on it before, Miles!” Blacker called the man who was busy typing numbers into his computer. “GWR.”

“Nope, not touching that with a barge pole. Got this to work on.” Ruby suddenly noticed the dozen empty coffee mugs around the man as he gestured at his own work. “It is not related to the British Train system though if that is helpful.”

It was not.

“Well, I’m going to try and get that one down today.” She sat down and pulled out a scrap piece of A4 and centred it on the desk.

She divided the paper into three parts and. Titled them with the letters G W and R and looked at the numbers. Four numbers, not a Polybius square, not a cipher. 4 numbers. Four numbers. Oh, that would be too simple, that would be far too simple. Page, paragraph, sentence, word. So that wasn’t even what she was attempting to solve, but now it was a book. She could do that.

**G W R**

So G was going to be an opener, either an adjective or an adverb.

W, another thing, probably denoting what it could be about, a subject or something.

R was definitely a subject, there was no other way around it.

She had no idea.

So, she brainstormed.

"/>

Records, that would make some sense. Records and if the notes were found by sporting events then World records would make sense. The notes were found at sport areas around town and the Olympics had been held a year previous. The first code was nowhere near close to last year. But they were not affected by time manipulation so it could be a speedster, it would make sense. Ruby’s face lit up as she realised, she had cracked the code. “Guinness World Records.” She quietly mumbled to herself. “Of course.”


	4. Chapter 4

And thus started the long and arduous task of decoding the notes. The dozens and dozens of four number codes. They where already sorted into chronological order which was incredibly helpful so she pulled a few of the newer ones out and started.

Cash, 24, hours, boating.

Microscopes, 8, days, track.

Cash, 19, minutes, boating.

Oh that would be hard to solve, a pre-discussed code that would reference the certain transactions. That would be hard to solve because it wouldn’t be written down, why did it have to be so hard. She banged her head on the desk which startled Clancy who was sleeping on the desk next to her.

“I take it Algebra isn’t going that well.” Ruby started, her voice muffled from the desk in her room, as well as the pile of papers her face had landed on and all the other stuff that created a healthy inch of mess beneath it.

Clancy interrupted quickly, “Better then flicking through an outdated world record book.” Ruby roller her head slightly, eyes narrowing as she glared at her best friend.

“I don’t trust myself to remember,” Ruby started, Clancy interrupting her with a slight huff of laughter, “I don’t trust myself to remember it all.” She clarified, moving to hit Clancy lightly on the back of his head when he refused to stop laughing. 

“If I do some decoding; will you do my algebra?” Clancy offered, poking her shoulder in retaliation. Still not stopping the laughte, but Ruby had to smile when the room transistioed from the tired and bored green to the content yellow. 

“Fine,” Ruby tried to sound angry but she really couldn’t.

(Why have the lines changed smh google docs)   
  


Ruby and Clancy had been able to fake each others handwriting ever since they had learnt how to write. That did not stop Ruby from forgetting that Clancy did his Z’s weirdly and her hand from trying to write in cursive for every singly bubbly 5 and 9. Nevertheless she worked through the sheet of equations, messing up a few so Clancy wouldnt get yelled at for cheating. Mr. Hope was a nice enough teacher but they all knew what level Clancy was working at. 

Clancy had finished five notes before she passed the homework back over, suddenly realising the room had turned from the yellow to a more nervous red, she was so used to blocking it out, supposedly a hard thing to do with Clancy’s powers. “What’s up?” She cautiously aked.

“There’s a pattern.” Clancy started, “It goes from an object and a place then cash and boating. They alternate.” He added, when he saw her face scrunch up with confusion, she readjusted her glasses and smiled.

“Robert said they where all found nearby Sport areas.” Ruby said, “So if I grab a map we can mark out all the sportsy areas,” Ruby started, wheeling her chair backwards, over some stray papers to yet another drawer where she rifiled through a picked out a map. “And then I think there is a thing about where the note is formed.” Truth be told, she hadn't looked at a lot of the context sheets as it had not looked at all interesting and her attention span was not ready for that. 

She unfolded it and set it on the floor, before grabbing a few coloured pens from a mug on the floor and throwing a few to Clancy. He caught them before settling himself next to Ruby. “What’s the key?” He asked, uncapping a felt tip. As Ruby tossed the rest of the mug of pens onto the floor.

“Blue for the pools, Red for leisure centres, orange for basketball courts, green for tennis slash badminton courts, golf can be purple, skateparks are now teal, do we have teal?”   
Clancy waved a pen in front of her face and smiled. 

So they got to work, carefully dotting and colouring in all the different areas on the map. Two hours later and far too many dead felt tips later the map was more coloured then before. “What’s the time?” Clancy started.

“I’ve already told your parents you’re staying the night,” Hitch started from the door, Ruby jumped out of her seat as Hitch opened the door and moved inside the room quickly. “More notes from Spectrum,” He placed another pile of notes down on a vacant chair and smiled, “You don’t know anything about this Clancy.” Before backing out of the room. “You know where to find me if you get anything. Also Robert apologises for her handwriting,” 

Ruby grabbed the pile of new notes and carefully sorted them out, into notes, and some other information. Robert’s handwriting was barely decipherable but she carefully read it out loud, “Sorry, I really thought this was with the file you already had. It is a list of where certain notes were found. I didn’t realise.” Ruby, raised her eyebrow and frowned, “This handwriting is worse than mine but at least we know where the notes came from now, so we can put that on the map as well.” 

“Can we hang the map up somewhere?” Clancy started, clicking his back back into place.

“So we can go full Crazy Cops with this,” She asked looking at the teen who was now reaching to find the heart shaped glasses that were perched on his head. She kicked a few books out of the way 

“So we can get a better view,” He responded, hand reaching to his head. “Which would be so much better then how it is right now.” And then, trying to suppress the smie forming on his face, “Do you have,” Nope, he fully broke. He was hitting the nearby desk he was laughing so much, “Do you have any red string.” He had been lost.”

“You laugh but I think,” Ruby, suddenly felt a bright pink and she was laughing too now, “I actually think we do.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey I would really appreciate some comments and kudos if you haven't its starting to get good.


	5. Chapter 5

Now that everything was sorted out, hung vertical against the wall. On the wall closest to the bed, the stuff previously pinned to that board now on the bed sheets. The pinboard closest to the bed, because Ruby was far too small to reach the top of the city without needing to balance on any of the spinny chairs, something that Hitch had outright banned when they had moved downstairs to find some string and thumbtacks. He had even helped them centre the map on the board because he was not willing for Clancy to get brain damage from falling off the bed just yet.

Ruby was calling out which thumbtacks and where the string was going next when she suddenly fell silent. “What have you just realised?” He looked at the girl, who had just frozen in place, “Cause you are realising something.”

“I know where the next drop off point is I think?” Ruby started, “At the Skatepark near the beach. In errr,” She moved to look at the new pile of notes. “At 7am.”

Clancy jumped and landed criss-crossed on the bed. “So before school then.” He smirked, filling the room with Yellow. 

  
  


6:30 and they were aimlessly trying to find Hitch somewhere in the house. “I think he’s left.” Ruby started, “We have enough time to ride there,”

“I don't have a bike,” Clancy said.

“I’ll give you a croggy, Dad confiscated my skateboard.” Ruby said.

“You know I would do anything for you right?” Clancy started, “But if anyone is giving anyone a croggy, the lanky one is giving it to the short person.” 

So naturally the next half an hour was spent with Clancy balanced carefully on a pair of handles, as he screamed for Ruby to slow the hell down. “RUBY SABRINA REDFORT,” He yelled as she weaved her way through the parked cars. “CAN YOU PLEASE. SLOW. DOWN.” 

She only laughed in response, and half an hour later they ended up by the skate park. Clancy jumping off right before Ruby crashed into a bush. “Do you have a plan,” He asked, “Because it is nearing 7,” The dawn was beginning to break over the city behind them as Ruby looked at the skatepark. 

She was looking for good hiding spots, slowly ruling out plants and bins and rocks and ramps and all the other spots. Some spots where too closed, not easy to get into and out of. None of the planters had enough bush to hide something under. Her eyes settled on a boulder, the rocks had been shifted recently from the looks of the placement and the concrete underneath. Heavy enough to keep a piece of paper under it but light enough that it could be moved in a hurry. Her eyes caught a small slip of paper beneath it and smiled, “You stay here and look for anything weird and I’ll go and grab it.” 

She climbed over the fence, the gate being locked until after school was over by the request of some parents at some point. She moved to pick it up and suddenly was greeted by a blonde boy punching her in the face. A flurry of blows landed on her back as she whirled around to get a better view. The boy was coming in and out of focus almost flickering as he started punching her. She ignored it as she managed to read the numbers on the paper, committing it to memory before managing to get a decent look at the boy.

Surfer haircut, white t-shirt, brown shorts, worn down trainers expected for a speedster, incredibly tanned and freckled. He disappeared before Clancy had even been able to scramble over the fence to deck him. “Had a shark tooth necklace,” She mumbled to herself. Feeling red nerves and Pink bravery cover the area. 

They arrived at school only twelve minutes late. It didn’t affect Clancy who skipped the first lesson Monday due to not being on anyone's register. Ruby however had already selected a suitable absence excuse (Ruby was late due to helping a pregnant woman give birth outside the cup o’ coffee signed, Midwife Moira (whether that child had ever given birth was something Ruby would never tell)).

“Redfort.” Del demanded, moving up to Ruby as she zipped up her bag and shoved a few books into her locker. Entirely interrupting her train of thought, she had been trying to place that Boy ever since she had locked the bike up.

“What do you want?” Ruby looked over at Del, Hair tied back, but she was dressed in sports stuff so she had not run to school today, gym shoes. ‘Basketball practice later’ her brain supplied...

“I’m not allowed to play on the team next week.” Del started, voicing angering slightly, Ruby only nodded as she trained to reboard that train of thought, the boy didn't go to Twinford Junior High, he wasn’t in any of the local scout groups. “‘Cause it is unfair on the other team.” Del carried on, ignoring Ruby's blank face. “I even said that I will play against their powered person but apparently that is. Redfort, do you have any idea what I am talking about?” 

Ruby managed to snap back quickly enough to add, “You need me to cover the basketball game next week because the junior high league only allows various matches to have enhanced people play the game and they have deemed your power as unfair to the other players.” Ruby started, “Why can’t Clancy?” She asked, “His aim is admittedly far worse than mine but he has a better chance of being free.” 

“Emotion projection is also against the rules as well.” Del muttered, “Can you do next Wednesday or not.” 

Ruby thought for a moment, nothing was happening on Wednesday and nothing happened on a wednesday historically. “Yeh, I can do Wednesday next week.” She agreed. Del smiled, moving to walk off after the confirmation,”Wait,” Ruby called out suddenly, “You said the other team had a powered person they couldn't play as well.” Del nodded and Ruby continued before Del could interrupt, “Do you know why? What power did they have?” 

“Speedster,” Del answered. Ruby’s hand involuntarily slamming against her locker as she realised what was happening. “Why?” Del asked, face looking concerned as Ruby groaned.

“Just wondering,” Ruby lied through her gritted teeth. “No, I was just wondering.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apparently Croggies are a purely northern thing that happens now where else in the would, essentially you sit on the persons handlebars as you ride together. Clancy should be giving Ruby the lift because she is shorter but.... comedy.  
> Anyway please like comment and subscribe, I really appreciate it and it honestly makes my day.


	6. Chapter 6

A speedster, her age that was suddenly free next week. With an event he could easily make an alibi with if he appeared at the beginning to wish his team good luck and then at the end. “Miss Redfort,” Mr Edwards said, “Do you mind solving this equation of the board please,” Ruby snapped back into existence and looked at the board, momentum and friction, solve to get maximum velocity, capital V, SUVAT. Solve to F=MA, to get A 2.69, V=U+AT, 13.2+2.69X4.

“23.96” Ruby confidently announced before she had even got to the board, She grabbed the pen and started working it out on the whiteboard, “Yeh,” Even more confidenrtly this time, “It’s definitely 23.96.” She put the pen back on the desk and walked back to her seat, artfully dodging Vapona’s heel that had stuck out to trip her up. 

“Well done Miss Redfort,” Mr Edwards dejectfully added, she smiled as she sat back down and pulled a notebook out. “Mr Stephens, can you do the next one please.” He was going alphabetically then, she had plenty of time until she was called again, and as her table partner stood up, nervous from the way his eyes changed colour she smiled and got back to her theory.

“Well that was fun,” Elliot started, “Shame that your power means that you can do those equations like that.” He snapped his finger and smiled, “Cause you weren't paying attention.” He smirked and Ruby shoved him slightly, “Where were you this morning anyway?” 

“Woke up late,” Ruby lied badly, “I was feeling a bit ill but Hitch made me come in,” Nice Ruby, set up an excuse in case you have to do someething later in the week. 

“So you weren’t helping delivering a baby outside the overpriced coffee shop?” They both surprised a smirk as Elliot continued, “Whole school is talking about it, and you’re a terrible lier, if you where ill Hitch would have written a note.” 

‘Goddamit,’ Ruby frowned, “I mean,” She started, “I was ill.” Why didn’t spies have some sort of lie lesson. Oh it's because she was never an ‘official agent’ okay how do you tell a good lie.

Rules on How to tell a true lie 

Base it in truth , well the truth is that she was trying to find a speedster to stop an international drug smuggling operation. So can’t do that one.

Involve as few people as possible, Well it’s Hitch and Clancy so that ones done.

Don’t make it too big

“Yeh,” She decided. Deflect deflect deflect, “What where you doing this morning.” 

Elliot visibly deflated when he saw that he was not going to get a straight answer from his friend before the next lesson but he allowed the convastation to carry on. Ruby was easily the most secretive out of all of them and who could blame her, his power was he could perfectly tune instruments first time, hers was she could remember everything. 

The school day continued normally, Physics with Elliot moved to RM with Elliot and Mouse, which moved to lunch (basketball practice she was really bad still). Lunch led into Advanced Maths which then went to Advanced History. 

And then she went home, well Hitch took her home and that meant he had questions. “I’ve already heard about the baby you delivered this morning,” He started, pulling out of his spot, “Well done, delviereing a baby is a tough job, especially as the baby in question was delivered on the other side of town to where you live.” 

“Funny that,” Ruby muttered, had this car always been this big, the tension was palpable as Hitch started driving the opposite way. “Isn’t home that way,” Ruby pointed to the road behind her, shifting around to see the school gates disappear behind her. 

“Kid,” Hitch started, “You’re really bad at hiding shit,”

“Don’t swear,” Ruby muttered, “What do you want to know?” She stared out of the window, watching the cars trundle past them. 

“Anway,” Hitch was slowly losing his temper, it wasn’t her fault, he had already said that Spectrum was going through some stuff and that was probably what was causing the stress, because Hitch’s knuckles were slowly turning white on the steering wheel and he did not have a travel cup of coffee in the little notch beside him. He had arrived in a rush from the looks of it. “I know you and Clancy left this morning after I went to work, I know that you intercepted a note from a suspect and you probably saw their face.” He listed off, “You probably saw their face and then instead of going straight to Spectrum or trying to contact me, you delivered a baby.” 

“Yeh,” Ruby mumbled, looking for a quick way out of the car, she could tuck and roll but that would be into incoming traffic, she was in the back seat so she could scoot over and then escape that way. “I mean, the baby’s fine.”

“Oh, I’m glad.” Hitch grumbled.

“How was your day?” Ruby asked, bad question, bad question, the car got more angry, a solid Teal if Clancy was here.

“Could have been better honestly.” Hitch responded, “I’m going to spectrum because the bosses want to completely redo the hierarchy of Spectrum eight so i’ve been helping LB and Robert sorry that out. They want to cut funding for training but also have more agents, I don’t know,” He pulled back over at the coffee roastery and opened the door. “Can I trust you to get to Coding or do you have to be taken there.”

“I can get to coding?” Ruby frowned, she didnt have to be observed like an animal, “I’ll be fine.”

went straight to Spectrum gadget room, she had a plan in her head but she needed a set of long distance walkie talkies with a private frequency and visuals. She walked through the rows and rows of gadgets, looking into a few empty boxes. She found a pair of walkie talkies, placing them carefully next to her history essay in her rucksack. Then she continued looking, none of the technicians where around so as she carefully pulled boxes in and out, inspecting blueprints and a few other things, she pocketed a circular badge, grabbing the note before creeping out to go to coding. 

Coding was quiet, both Froghorn and Blacker missing as she sat down at her laptop and opened the computer. Let’s research this speedster. 

His name was Brett Langston, he was a surfer based in Parlinett bay, a rich part of Twinford. He was labelled a ‘problem child’ from his school, known for disappearing from the classroom with no reasons given. Had a stable family, parents still together an investor and a script writer, looks like he’s just bored from the sounds of it. Goddammit Brett, could have been more interesting, have some back story. At least the Count was a theatre kid and Lorelei was a shapeshifter, both had at least semi-tragic backstories. Brett was just a spoiled kid from the looks of it. She wrote it all down in her notebook, although she did have perfect memory, having it all in one space made it so much easier to get off of the tangents that the subject could cause. For Brett it had already gone to various baseball and american football players so that was fun. 

And then her eyes hit a school report from two years ago, a note home precisely, “Brett is upset after he learnt he is not eligible for school sporting events due to his powers,” Then she flicked further back, “Brett has shown a key interest in sporting legend Toby Neufin,” Toby Neufin, fastest nonpowered human in the 100m, 200m, 500m, hurdles and a variety of other things. Kid liked sport from the sound of it, consigned himself to surfing because he was allowed to compete but his heart was on the field from the looks of it, on the court and the track. Semi-interesting. 

Her eyes flicked to a picture, to the familiar blond hair, the familiar nose, a familiar sharks tooth hanging from a string of twine. Goddammit, Brett Langston was her target.

She scrawled down the numbers she saw earlier, around 50, a longer note then the 16 use for previous notes. Slipping the note into a notebook to crack later. 

**Author's Note:**

> I cannot say enough how much the RR wiki helped with this, as well as everyone on the discord. A huge apology to anotherrubyredfortblog, who did not deserve to be partnered with my messy ass, as well as Kitty who organised all of this. I'm doing like, Bi-weekly uploads until exams end and then all the rest will be shoved up before Febuary hopefully. :)))))


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